The History of Goodwill as Intangible Property

Date: December 6, 2024 (Friday)

Time: 4pm to 5pm

Venue: Room 824, 8/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, The University of Hong Kong

Speaker: Barbara Lauriat (Associate Professor of Law & Dean’s Scholar in Intellectual Property, Texas Tech University School of Law)

Goodwill as a property right plays an important role in the common law tort of passing off throughout the Commonwealth at the same time it serves as a central organizing concept for the U.S. trade mark system. Many historical accounts of the development of Anglo-American trade mark law have identified the concept of goodwill as a nineteenth-century legal creation; however, variations of the term “goodwill” referring to intangible property date back at least as far as the sixteenth century. Gaining gradual recognition as a customary right, goodwill existed as commercial and cultural reality, eventually finding its way into the common law over time. Understanding that goodwill was already a well-established property right before the advent of modern trade mark law adds an important piece to the narrative of unfair competition and trademark laws in different jurisdictions. Late nineteenth and early-twentieth century English and American courts adopted the preexisting legal concept of goodwill in different areas of their legal systems, setting them on divergent theoretical and doctrinal paths.

Barbara Lauriat holds a tenured position at Texas Tech University School of Law, where she teaches torts and a variety of IP subjects. She has degrees from the United States and the United Kingdom, where she taught for over a decade. Her legal research is primarily in the area of IP and often uses legal history and comparative methodologies to shed light on current legal doctrines.

Discussant: Jyh-An Lee, Professor, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law

Chair: Yahong Li, Associate Professor, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law

To register, please go to https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_regform.aspx?guest=Y&UEID=97501.